Moral discourses in medical travel

Recent works that highlight the embodied aspect of medical travel have drawn on the conceptual frameworks of affect and authenticity. This paper will contribute to this line of works by drawing on interviews with medical travellers for cardiac procedures (to treat potentially life threatening conditions) and orthopaedic surgeries (for chronic and disabling but not life threatening conditions) in two Malaysian hospitals. I will focus on the discourse of moralities of these international patients in their experience of what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ (and why it may be so) in their medical travel experiences. As juxtaposition, I will also draw from interviews with international travel intermediaries as well as hospital staff who have direct interactions with patients. The different discourses will be examined in order to tease out the tensions and collusions between (possibly) different sets of moralities, and to uncover the unspoken ‘rules and regulations’ that govern practices in medical travel.